Recently I started reading a new book, and although I haven’t finished chapter one yet, the message seems to be exactly what my insecure sixteen-year-old self needed to hear. I’m not shy about admitting that I grew up a romantic. I grew up with Disney Princess dress-up clothes, a Disney Princess lamp, and a Disney Princess cake. You name it. When I was younger, I once told my entire class I wanted to be Ariel when I grew up. I grew up with society telling me a prince coming to rescue me and then taking me away into the sunset would make me happy. I grew up with society telling me I needed a man. The more I think about my childhood, the more I realize the role society has played in my desire for love in my teen years and current young adult years.
Besides my one-day phase of wearing a baseball hat backwards, walking around the block with my next-door-neighbor and pretending to be “tomboys,” I’ve always been a girly-girl. Once I told my family that pink used to be a male color and blue used to be a female color. They didn’t believe me until I showed them proof that they did. It got me thinking about how the only reason blue is for boys nowadays is because that’s what society tells us.
It’s ironic that men literally need women to reproduce; they need women yet we don’t need men. Society has taught it to us backward. While I want a man someday, I don’t need one. Most women I know are strong and independent and don’t need one, but yet, like me, they face society’s wrath and rejection when they are in their 20s or 30s not coupled up. I’m only twenty-one, but I still feel the pressure sometimes. Thankfully, I’ve grown a lot more confident over the last six months and I’m finally at a place where I genuinely enjoy being single. However, it took me a while.
Just to put it out there, going against society is one of the greatest things you can do. I’m going against it by enjoying my single years. My parents have been going against it their whole lives. Society has actually gotten a lot better at treating women more equally in terms of careers. My dad does the cooking and cleaning because my mom is a hard-working lawyer who simply doesn’t have the time. My dad was the one taking my siblings and I to soccer practices. My mom did help but my dad did a lot of it growing up. Seeing that then hearing about how women were supposed to be in the home, shocked me. I hadn’t seen that in my own home and assumed there was equality. It’s proof that going against society and showing the next generation through action can lead to a change in societal norms. Society is huge. One person can’t change it, but generational change is very possible.
Society tells us a lot, but in particular, it gives romantic relationships most of the spotlight. In high school, I felt like there was something wrong with me because I didn’t have a boyfriend. Since no one asked me out, I thought it meant I was ugly, unattractive, and meant I’d be alone forever. I’d seen so many romances and I wanted one so badly.
Another issue is the unrealistic expectations presented to us in Rom-coms. The guy always seems to go to the girl so I always thought a guy would just fall in my lap. Rom-coms don’t teach you what to do when that doesn’t happen. I was lost. I was stuck in the exposition of the movie, never having my meet-cute moment. Then when I did start dating after high school, all I found were guys who were awful to me. They weren’t like the guys in the rom-coms. They lied to me and love-bombed and used me and all of the above. It wasn’t until I started really soaking in my single years that I was even able to bounce back. Now I know I do deserve that rom-com guy. He won’t be easy to find, but I don’t deserve any less. If I don’t find someone, then I’ll enjoy my own company. That’s better than settling for the guys I was with before.
Singleness is a gift. I get to go to bed and not have to share my bed with anyone. I get to go about my day without worrying about why he hasn’t texted me. I get to watch the tv shows I like and not the ones he likes. I get to spend more time with my writing and with the things I like to do that he never found cool.
I never thought I’d get to the point in my life where I could imagine myself happy and unmarried. Now I can.
My favorite Disney Princess growing up was Belle. She’s kind, smart, and loves to read like me. She rejected Gaston because she didn’t want to settle for him. She’s strong and independent, and if the Beast was anything like Gaston, she’d walk away in a heartbeat. Belle doesn’t need the Beast. A lot of princess movies only have the princess in the title. There’s no prince mentioned in the title. Because us princesses, while a prince is an amazing addition to our amazingness, we don’t need them.